LOS ANGELES – Drug users across Los Angeles have encountered some bad cocaine that is eating away their flesh.

LOS ANGELES – Drug users across Los Angeles have encountered some bad cocaine that is eating away their flesh.

In a case study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Craft describes over seventy cocaine users recently plagued by the dark purple patches of dying flesh. And while they happened to hail from the country’s coastlines – especially in Los Angeles – the problem is national.

As if cocaine wasn’t dangerous enough. Check it out:

The DEA recently reported that 82 percent of the cocaine it seizes is cut with the veterinary drug. While cheaper cocaine can be close to 90 percent filler, it’s often notably filled with harmless baking soda. Exactly why the veterinary drug has begun to be popular remains a subject of debate.

But drug cartels in South America increasingly prefer to use levamisole, a veterinary antibiotic normally used to deworm cattle, sheep, and pigs. It’s not clear why dealers don’t just use baking soda all the time, although studies in rats suggest that levamisole might tingle brain receptors in the same way cocaine does. If that’s the case, adding it to the supply might be a way to enhance the effects of cocaine on the cheap.

Apparently not everyone has the same reaction to the drug and the effects do disappear from some of the affected once the drug leaves the body, but bad scars will remain with the user forever.